Waiting for a record label to pick up The Trade gives me the same feeling as how it felt to hitchhike. My hitchhiking days ran from the time I was 14--hitching the 12 miles back and forth to Jr. High School from Kenwood to Santa Rosa, California along highway 12--'til their last gasp in my mid-20's hitching around Vermont with my ex-wife.

The feeling I'm talking about is the one of standing on the road waiting for the right ride to come. A sense of waiting pervades. Waiting is everything, and it is mingled with suspense and boredom. It's always waiting for the "right ride". That was the philosophy, the attitude. Cars would go by one by one. Each set of headlights would bring a new hope, then would pass by in a stream of dust and exhaust.

My life has evolved: I now have a somewhat reliable 80's model minivan that I put an ungodly amount of miles on each week. I don't need to hitchhike anymore. With four instruments, a PA system, concert clothes, and boxes of CD's, my twenty-something days of "all I own fits on my back" are gone. Yet, in this life approaching forty a similar feeling emerges: I'm waiting for a record label to pick me up and take me to that next destination. It's a conscious choice. It's a business move for the better. It's a destination I would not be able to travel to left to my own means. I need a ride.

My housemate Lee, in Bend, Oregon in 1982 told me his secret for hitchhiking. "Just sing, C'mon people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right now". Lee would say, "Someone has to pick you up when you're singing that song". So I tried it. That great old Jesse Colin Young song. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. I found that the key to a good ride was inside myself. If I knew clearly where I was going, I would always have the time and patience to summon the best ride. I guess waiting for a label might be a lot like that.

Where am I going? In short, to fulfill my education in music and manifest the sounds I hear in my head. To continue doing this for a living. To experience the privilege of devoting myself to doing great shows. It's simple: having a label put its business savvy behind selling my music is what will enable me to continue doing this for a living.

It's a mighty spacious feeling standing on the shoulder of a two lane in some remote place. I recall spending hours in western Colorado and Utah getting to know my surroundings. The gravel under my feet, telephone poles that become sundials, the ditch along the road, the changing clouds, and distant hills all become familiar like how strangers meet in a bus and get to know each others' life stories by the journey's end. Yet in this case we were all standing still. And all are forgotten the instant a car materializes out of nowhere and the driver says, "where you goin'?" But I remember now. Now that I'm waiting for a record label and wondering how to handle it.

I imagine the labels are as varied as the types of rides possible. Some will take you for a bump down the road and drop you off in some stupid place where you'd have to walk miles through the traffic of a town to go anywhere from there. Yet other rides seem sent from heaven and they'll go out of their way to drop you off at your front door. And there's everything in between.

I've leaned and strained, my ears pitched in hyper-awareness towards the rush of wheels and air that signals the approach of another vehicle. This time, I listen for the rush of digital matter on the phone lines, though I haven't learned to hear that yet. This new recorded collection of music was completed in September. I've had my thumb out for four months now. I understand that in addition to location, timing is everything. I wait. I am at the mercy of something I cannot name. I lean and strain to hear its name. The name of some cool label that's gonna know I'm a good bet, and that we're a match made in heaven. Yea man, that what I'm putting out. Waiting for the right ride.

That's it for now. I'm revving up for another west coast and mountain states tour. Take a look at the schedule page. Keep in touch. Drop a line in the guest book.

Happy New Year everybody! (We made it!)

Dana